


And I've Got No Defense For It

by bookishandbossy



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6278527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookishandbossy/pseuds/bookishandbossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen Page doesn't know much about the guy who comes in every weekend to pet the cats at the animal shelter where she volunteers.  But she does know that the way he makes her heart speed up is nothing short of unfair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And I've Got No Defense For It

**Author's Note:**

> Written in celebration of the premiere of season 2 tomorrow!
> 
> Title from "Witchcraft".

It's the third time this week that Karen has seen Cat Guy. Okay, maybe she needs a better name for him than Cat Guy but one of her coworkers already claimed Unfairly Hot Guy for the blond who came in a few weeks ago to adopt a hyperactive golden retriever and stops by every other week to play with all the other dogs who haven't found homes yet. Then there's Angsty Hot Guy, the one with the messy dark hair who just sits and stares sadly at the puppies until someone opens up the kennel and lets him in to play with him. And there's Hot Girl, the one with the brilliantly red hair who always comes to drag both of them off before they adopt half the shelter. 

The volunteer coordinator Darcy loves gossiping about all the different people who come through but Karen hasn't told her about Cat Guy yet. There's something about him, about the way his eyes are always hidden behind dark glasses and the quiet curve of his mouth when the cats crawl into his lap, that she wants to keep to herself for just a little while longer. And just maybe, there's something about him that she recognizes in herself too.

Coming to New York had seemed inevitable after a while and not just because of everything she'd left behind her in New England: the absent parents, the ex-boyfriend with a bad temper, the big company where she'd blown the whistle on some of their business practices and quit before they could fire her. New York was the kind of place people went when they wanted to disappear into the crowd and emerge as someone new and somehow, magically, Karen feels more comfortable in her own skin than she ever has before. Her apartment on the edge of Hell's Kitchen is tiny and her microwave shakes wildly and sounds like it's possessed whenever she tries to use it, but it's all hers. She picked the vintage travel posters that she's hung on the walls and the books that line her shelves and the brightly colored dishes that she uses to cook dinner for one. She found a new job at a law firm, which isn't always perfect but which has free bagels every Friday, and she spends a lot of her spare time volunteering at the animal shelter. She's even thinking of adopting a cat. Karen isn't completely okay yet but she's going to be. And when she sees Cat Guy sigh and settle himself more comfortably on the floor, like he's trying to shake off a weight that's settled on his shoulders, she can't help wanting to take some of that weight off herself.

And if, late at night, she wonders what color his eyes are behind his glasses and what that curve of his mouth would feel like pressed against hers...well. She's allowed to wonder. It's silly, that a guy she barely knows can make her breath come fast and her stomach flutter whenever she spots him leaning against a wall, cat curled up in his lap, but Karen thinks that after everything, she's allowed a little bit of silly.

It takes her almost two weeks to talk to him and when she finally does, it's not any of the lines she's carefully planned out. It's a chilly Saturday morning, the kind where Karen drank two and a half cups of coffee before she even left her house, and the massive ginger tomcat with a bad temper is headed straight for him, beady eyes on the kittens that have colonized Cat Guy's lap.

“Don't you dare!” she shrieks and scoops the cat up, holding it away from her body when it starts to yowl. “Sorry about Crookshanks here. He doesn't like seeing any of the other cats get attention, so normally we keep him in his own cage but someone must have let him out.”

“Crookshanks? Is he huge and orange?” The guy laughs and tilts his face up towards hers.

“Yeah, he is actually. He's very fluffy, but he won't let most people hold him,” Karen says and tries to find Crookshanks' head underneath all the fur to scratch behind his ears. Usually that stops the yowling. “He's particular.”  
“Most cats are. They pick one or two people, stick to them, and hiss at everyone else. It sounds like a good strategy to me sometimes,” he adds and sighs heavily, stroking one of the kittens in his lap as it purrs loudly. Karen can't help thinking that she'd purr too if he touched her like that and firmly tells her mind to stop before it can go any further. (At least he can't see her turning bright red.)

“Well, now that I've saved you from Crookshanks, I'd better go put him back in his cage,” Karen says, suddenly feeling awkward. Clearly, Cat Guy comes here to get away from people, not to have more of them bother him.

“No, no, not you,” he blurts out. “Stay. Please. I mean, we've got to have a Crookshanks tamer around here. Just in case he decides to go after me again.”

“So you want me to be your knight in shining armor?” Karen teases.

“Exactly. I'm Matt,” he says and gives her a shy smile that makes her heart leap dangerously in her chest. “I'd shake hands but I'm currently covered in cats.”

“Karen.” She slides down the wall to sit beside him, Crookshanks carefully positioned on her lap and behaving himself for once. They're a little closer than they should be, close enough that their shoulders could touch if she moved over an inch or two, but Karen doesn't care enough to move. And somehow, when he asks her how her day's been, she finds herself opening her mouth and telling him everything.

He knows all about working in a law office, as it turns out. He's a lawyer, only he's the kind who wants to use his degree to change something about the world rather than to make a six-figure salary. Right now, he's working to keep a whole building full of tenants from being evicted by a landlord who wants to tear it all down and build expensive high-rise condos. 

“They're turning off the lights and water,” Matt tells her, spots of red burning high on his cheekbones. The hand that isn't stroking a cat is balled at his side, fingers clenching and unclenching. “Trying to starve all the residents out and claim that the building isn't livable. Of course, it would be livable if they hadn't smashed holes in the walls.”

He holds it in well but Karen can tell that he's mad and she...she understands. She knows exactly what it's like to feel that you're the only person who can see what's really going on or, even worse, the only person who's doing anything to stop it. And she knows exactly what that desperate knot that's wanting to do the right thing feels like. So she slides a hand over until it just touches his and keeps it there. Matt lets her and when he talks again, he seems a little calmer than before.

“So are you ever going to adopt a cat?” she asks her when he stands to go.

“Maybe. When are you volunteering next weekend?”

He's there right at the beginning of her shift next weekend, tentative smile on his face and pink bakery box in one hand. “I brought them for all the volunteers,” he blurts out. “But I thought that you could pick first.”

“Trying to bribe us into stopping asking you when you're finally going to adopt a cat?” Karen asks. “You're such a tease.”  
She regrets it the moment she says it, maybe because she hasn't flirted with anyone in what feels like forever, always too busy looking back over her shoulder to see if her past has caught up with her yet. Or maybe it's because she's not sure what to make of the warmth spreading through her chest and the faint flutter of nerves in her stomach. When men make her nervous, it's usually not in a good way 

“Hey, that's not fair,” Matt protests. “For all you know, I could adopt Crookshanks right now.”

“Don't you dare. We need him to scare all the cat burglars away.” It's an awful joke but Matt laughs anyway and opens the bakery box so she can pick. When she bites into one of the pear-ginger scones, her eyes widen and she has to keep herself from moaning. Karen's tried making scones in her tiny kitchen but her oven is coated with some kind of unidentifiable black substance that's stubbornly resistant to any and all cleaning products. 

“So I should bring more next week?” Matt asks.

“Yes, you should. With more scones,” she tells him firmly.

He does. He comes back week after week, letting the cats climb all over him as he sits on the floor and talks to her. After a while, he wins the whole staff over but he always says hello to Karen first and goodbye to her last. She tells herself that it has to mean something and is almost embarrassed at how desperately she wants it to. There's just something about Matt, not just about his voice and his smile, but about how his voice sounds when he's talking about something he loves and about how his smile looks when it's directed at her. Karen likes the person that she is when she's around him, likes the determination that comes into her voice and the grin that follows it, and she thinks (she hopes) that he likes that person too. 

So, one Saturday, when Matt has a lap full of kittens and is essentially incapable of fleeing, she says it. “What are you doing tonight?” she blurts out.

“Not much. Foggy might drag me out to this new bar in Harlem that's supposed to be really good.” Matt shrugs. “Luke's or something.”

“How about if I drag you out instead?” Karen says, trying to sound casual. “There's an Italian place near where I live that makes all their pasta by hand. We could have dinner, maybe get some drinks afterward.”

“So it's a date?”

“It's absolutely a date.”

Eight hours later, she kisses him in the rain outside her apartment. Neither of them have an umbrella but neither of them really care. There's much better things to think about when he's got her pressed back against her door, one hand twisted in her hair and the other resting on her hip to draw her closer. It's intoxicating, the way he sucks right at her pulse and sighs in satisfaction when she pulls him back up to kiss her again, but somehow she feels the steady beat of his heart next to hers and manages to keep her balance. And it's almost insane, kissing Matt Murdock where anyone can see, soaked through to the skin, but she feels like she's never been more clear-headed in her life. This is what she wants: him and her, for as long as possible.

“So are you going to adopt a cat now?” Karen breathes when she finally pulls away.

“Nope, not till the fourth date,” he says and laughs.

“I know what you're doing, you know,” she says, grinning up at him. “And I just might let you keep on doing it anyway.”

Later, she tells him that she can't believe she's so lucky. He tells her that he's luckier.


End file.
